The son of a notorious former Hezbollah military commander was killed in an Israeli helicopter strike in southern Syria yesterday. Hezbollah sources said that Jihad Moughniyah and five other fighters were killed when the helicopter fired two missiles at their convoy after it was detected

Islamic State has freed about 200 Yazidi captives from the hundreds it abducted in northern Iraq, delivering them to safety in the Kurdish north. The Yazidis, mostly elderly and frail, as well as several mothers and three young children, were handed to Kurdish peshmerga at the front line outside

Islamic State has almost doubled the territory in Syria that is under its total or partial control, despite almost 800 coalition airstrikes since last summer. Weak regime defences, rebel infighting and, above all, the American-led coalition’s focus on Iraq have allowed the jihadists to strengthen

A chorus of disapproval from the Muslim world greeted the publication yesterday of Charlie Hebdo’s defiant caricature of Muhammad in its first edition since the core of the staff of the satirical weekly were massacred in their Paris offices last week. Restrictions were imposed in several countries

Thousands of mourners gathered in Jerusalem yesterday for the funeral of four Jewish men killed in Friday’s siege of a kosher supermarket in Paris. Many were French Jews who flew in for the ceremony or recent immigrants to Israel. Some carried signs saying “Dead because I’m a Jew”. Others wore

Arab leaders have been swift to denounce the Charlie Hebdo massacre, describing it as a perversion of Islamic values. Within the condemnations, however, lay a range of nuances, reflecting different ideologies, allegiances and anxieties across the one region that has suffered more from jihadist

A devastating winter storm is sweeping across the Middle East, dumping snow on areas more accustomed to sandstorms and bringing misery to hundreds of thousands of Syrian and Iraqi refugees. A Syrian shepherd and a seven-year old boy were reported to have died as they made the dangerous trek

The Palestinians will be admitted as members of the International Criminal Court within weeks, the UN has announced, paving the way for possible war crimes charges against Israel. Ban Ki Moon, the UN secretary-general, said that the Palestinian application to join the permanent tribunal in The

A senior militant who oversaw beheadings for Islamic State has himself been found decapitated amid signs of civilian resistance to the jihadists’ rule in Syria. Abu Zaid al-Masri, an Egyptian, was deputy leader of the so-called al-Hesbah police force in Mayadeen. His body was found near a power

The president of Iran has threatened to hold an unprecedented national referendum after warning hardliners who are opposed to a nuclear deal with the west of the dangers of continued international isolation. President Rouhani said that he planned to invoke a little-known provision under the